


Where You Go, I Go

by RogueTiger



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst but happy angst?, Canon events to end of 409, F/F, Minor Wynonna/Doc/Rosita and Wynonna/Rosita, Speculation, Yes that is Dolls in the characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 08:48:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30137028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueTiger/pseuds/RogueTiger
Summary: A speculation fic for the end of season 4 based on my brain going overboard watching the 4b trailer and hearing Nicole's urgent "Where you go, I go. Remember?" So you all get to suffer with me ;)Events are canon up until the end of 4x09.Propelled by the voice of an old friend, Nicole awakes on the pool table at Shorty's with no memory as to how she got there or why Wynonna's jacket is covering her head. The last thing she remembers is helping rescue demons and humans alike from BBD.
Relationships: Nicole Haught & Randy Nedley, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp & Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp/Doc Holliday, Xavier Dolls & Nicole Haught
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been stewing in my head for a while now but as I haven't been feeling well I wasn't motivated to write... up until I realised I wanted to get it out before what really happens this season comes to light... which was yesterday so it's no doubt rough around the edges, lol.
> 
>   
> 

_“WAKE UP!!”_

Air filled Nicole’s lungs in a burning rush and her heart thudded against the cage of her ribs as she sat bolt upright with a jerk, her body thrashing against the darkness shrouding her eyes.

She barely even registered the weight of Wynonna’s frilled jacket sliding down from around her head and shoulders to pool upon her lap but, she felt the weight of the gunpowder and whiskey-soaked leather within her grasp and used it to ground her as she looked around in an effort to make sense of where she was when the last thing she could remember was escaping the BBD facility and the woods around it.

Shorty’s?

She would know it anywhere as it had been the backdrop to some of the most important moments in her life since she had moved to Purgatory. But, the cavernous room was dimly lit, almost sombrely so despite the brightness of the daylight trying to make its way through the tiny, dirt and poster encrusted windows

Not only was she in Shorty’s but, Nicole realised, she was lying on the pool table that Wynonna had given birth to Alice on?

Frowning in confusion, she swallowed, trying to detect any alcohol but there was no taste of Christmas, collage or regrets that usually lingered after allowing herself to be led astray by Wynonna to help her fill in the gaps that had led her there. But, there was nothing.

Nothing.

Apart from the lingering echo of a voice ordering, begging her to WAKE UP, and the feel of hands shoving against her chest.

_WAKE UP!_

“Dolls!”

Hot tears of guilt and regret stung Nicole’s eyes as his voice came back to her. It sent her scrambling across the pool table, her heavy work boots scoring groves into the green felt before she tumbled off the edge to land on her hands and knees on the hard, beer and god only knew what else stained floor. She felt the shockwave of the landing jolt and ripple through her bones but, it barely even registered as she jerked to her feet with the grace of a marionette at the hands of a puppeteer, and rushed across the room.

Barely slowing her pace, Nicole crashed blindly through the door into the restroom and emptied the meagre contents of her stomach into the nearest sink.

Nicole’s fingers dug into the cold edge of the sink as she looked at what had come out of her. At least there were no frogs to contend with, that was an improvement but the soil, leaves and cherry blossom mixed in with the bile left a lot to be desired in taste and texture.

_WAKE UP!_

Lifting her head, Nicole stared at her reflection in the long mirror that ran along the back of the three sinks that stood side by side. She looked gaunt and haunted, her eyes dark and almost lifeless where they were sunk into dark sockets.

Turning on the taps, she rinsed out her mouth and washed away the soil staining her lips and clinging to her chin in an effort to feel more… alive. But, with every movement, she grew more aware of a deep ache in her chest and an unwillingness to address it that finally forced her to reach for the buttons of her shirt.

No coward, she worked fast, ignoring the slight tremble in her fingers as she unbuttoned her shirt and peeled back the fabric, exposing the clear imprint of two hands upon her flesh.

_WAKE UP!_

Dolls!

It was his voice echoing in her head, his handprints upon her.

But why and how?

Before she could even begin to think of how to work it out, Nicole heard the slow clomp of footsteps on the stairs that led to the room Waverly had once used and was now home for Randy Nedley after a year and a half as a barnacle beast had led to his house been sold by Chrissy.

Knowing all too well the surprises that Purgatory could throw her way, Nicole kept a watchful eye upon the door and quietly but quickly reached for her service weapon but… her fingers found only an empty holster and she could tell by the lack of weight that she didn’t have her back up weapon on her either.

“What in the—”

The familiar gruff tone of her unexpected father figure and ex-boss calmed Nicole’s nerves and had her feet moving towards the door, her body bursting through into the bar with a clatter that made Nedley jump. It was the sight of her that seemed to take his knees out from under him and had his face going as white as a sheet and had him pulling back as she reached to steady him.

“N- Nicole?”

“Okay,” she chuckled, steadying him with a hand on his elbow. “Let me help you up. You haven’t been trying to match shots with Wynonna have you?” she tried teasing a comment out of him to dispel the look he was giving her.

“Where are Wynonna and everyone anyway?” Nicole looked around the bar, half hoping that the appearance of Nedley would have the others popping up out of hiding too.

“Trying to stop Waverly?”

“What?” Her head whipping back around, Nicole stared intently at him.

“You died, Nicole,” Randy whispered brokenly, swallowing past the lump in his throat as he looked at the young woman that, like Waverly and Wynonna, was like a daughter to him. As dear and precious to him as Chrissy. “You died again!” he bit out with more force. “Seriously, you have _got_ to stop doing that!”

Nicole let out a grunt of surprise as all the air was forced from her lungs by the strong hug he pulled her into.

**********

“What happened?” Nicole finally dared to question as she sipped at the glass Nedley had put in front of her on the bar and filled to the brim with whiskey despite her protests. She was two sips in and Nedley was already on his second glass. At least it had put some colour back in his cheeks.

“What do you remember?” Randy asked cautiously.

“BBD. Helping get all the prisoners out of there,” pausing, she took another sip from the still almost overflowing glass. “Is everyone okay?”

“Keep going with what you remember.”

“St James. I saw him heading into the woods acting all weird and followed.” She paused, frowning, hearing the sick echo of his laugh in her mind. “Fog. There was fog everywhere?”

“Damn stuff is coming from the garden and messing with everyone’s minds,” he growled. “Keep going.”

“I’m not—” her voice faded away, Randy’s face blurring and fading along with it as Nicole fell into her memories.

_St James standing in a clearing, his face split into a grotesque grin as he watched her coming closer._

_Laughing as she struggled to hold on to her memories._

_His face twisting and contorting fast and faster into a myriad of ones she had seen before settling into a mirror image of her own._

**_“You know, the garden tried to fool me. With a fake you.”_ **

_A hand wrapped around her throat, forcing her to her knees._

_Spectral fingers reaching for her heart._

_“Waverly is going to be **so** much fun to play with once you’re out of the way and her dark side comes out. This pitiful world will burn!”_

“It was Eve.”

“Waverly found you,” Randy whispered brokenly after downing the contents of his glass. “She brought you back here and then she went all Dark Willow, biblical-level end of days on what was left of Black Badge. Girl sprouted wings and burned what was left of them down to the ground for helping Eve and then she turned her wrath on her too.”

Nedley’s face was pale again, letting Nicole know in no uncertain terms that whatever Waverly had done in her grief, it was bad.

“She ripped Eve in half right in front of us, Nicole. Literally in half. It didn’t kill her though and she got away. Last we saw of Waverly, she said something about a gate and then she took off.”

The flapping motion of his hands said he meant it literally.

“The gate must close.”

“Yeah, that was it. How do you know that though?” He looked at her with narrowed eyes.

“I heard it somewhere else,” Nicole whispered.

**********

_“Where am I?” she breathed out, staring around her in wonder._

_“I think you know, Nicole. You’ve been here before… too many times.”_

_“Dolls!?” Whipping around at the familiar voice, she stared at him in wonder that turned to a resigned despair. “Oh god, I died again!? We’re supposed to be getting married tomorrow, Waverly is going to be **so** pissed!” she groaned._

_“You have no idea,” he sighed, a wry grimace twisting his lips. “You need to go back.”_

_“But—” she looked around, seeing familiar faces slowly emerging from the brightness around them._

_“No buts, Haught. You don’t belong here. Not yet. All been well, not ever.”_

_“What does that mean? Is it some religious homophobic BS?”_

_“That is some ‘destined for more’ BS,” he corrected her gently. “You need to go back. The gate must close.”_

_“What does that mean?” Nicole questioned, turning from the edge of a seemingly bottomless hole in the ground to face Dolls._

_“It means… WAKE UP!”_

_Hands planted against her chest, pushing her firmly back and over the edge into the hole and back into her consciousness._

**********

“Nicole! Nicole!” Randy shook her shoulder, trying to rouse her from where she had slumped over on to the bar, barely missing the glass of whiskey. “Jeremy made off with that damn wolf headdress and spellbook after the last time so don’t you dare die on me again!” He jumped back as Nicole popped back upright without warning and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and took no small amount of hairs on his chest with it.

“I need to get to Waverly!”

“That’s going to be easier said than done,” he winced as he gently untangled her fingers from his shirt.

“Why?”

“Because of this,” making his way from behind the bar, he gestured for her to follow him to the main entrance. “Hold on,” he nodded for her to follow his lead and brace herself against the edge of the door. “Whatever you do, don’t step out there, okay?”

“Okay,” Nicole laughed nervously at his strange behaviour and what felt like over caution but held on anyway because… Purgatory.

As soon as Nedley unbolted the doors and cautiously opened one side just a crack, the reason for his caution became clear as he was pushed backwards by the force of the wind beating ferociously against the building. The silence of it was disconcerting but it was nothing compared to what Nicole saw as she looked out through the open door and saw a thankfully empty truck been blown sideways across the street and straight through the plate glass window of the building next to Shorty’s.

“Jesus!”

Above the tops of the buildings on the other side of the street, which bizarrely looked as though they were bending and warping due to the wind pressing against them, the sky curled and twisted in on itself looking more like a pit of writhing snakes than clouds.

“It all started up after… well, after Waverly. And if my sense of direction is right—”

“It’s centred over the stairs to the garden,” Nicole finished for him.

“Yes. I know you think you need to get to Waverly—”

“I don’t think, I know—”

“Wynonna and Doc are on it—”

“Waverly needs to know I’m not dead.”

“You’ll die if you try to get through that, Nicole!”

“I have to try,” Nicole stated determinedly.

“You’re too stubborn for your own good. I blame that on Wynonna.”

“Really? ‘Cause I think that sounds more like you, old man,” Nicole grinned as she helped him pull the doors shut as another vehicle was pushed down the street to join the truck.

“Okay, smart ass,” pausing long enough to pour a hefty shot of whiskey and down it, he slapped the glass down and fixed her with a steady gaze knowing she was going to go out and risk everything for the woman she loved no matter what he thought. “what’s your plan then?”

“If I can make it to one of the cruisers I’m hoping it might have the weight and power to get me close. After that,” she shrugged. “I have to try and we all know that Wynonna doesn’t have the best plans no matter what she says.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

“Hey, what’s the word on Rachel?”

“Far as I know, she’s still with Jeremy and Mercedes outside the triangle along with most of the town making sure those bastards don’t try turning Purgatory into a crater so, she should be safe—” he grimaced at the memory of being in Mercedes’ tender care before he was taken over and became barnacle. “Reasonably safe anyway. Well, come on, let’s get you on your way before Wynonna does anything stupid or the world ends.”

**********

In the end, her plan for using the cruiser had gone better than Nicole could ever have hoped. She could feel the rushing winds pushing against the vehicle but as long as she kept her foot down and had it pointed towards the stairs as much as possible, the weighty vehicle punched through and stayed on the road.

Until the road ran out.

Parking up at the remnants of the memorial that marked where the Shelterlands Music Festival Fire had allegedly taken place, Nicole spent precious time changing into the wedding suit she had hidden in the trunk just days before.

There was no doubt in her mind that the dove grey fabric would be ruined but, if it really was the end of the world, she wanted Waverly to see that she had picked out the suit she had been hinting at since they had gotten engaged and not the white dress she had been teasing about getting.

Slamming the trunk shut, Nicole tugged and smoothed the fitted waistcoat back into place and plunged headfirst into the maelstrom of wind and branches that whipped at her body with such ferocity that even a leaf became a weapon capable of drawing a thin line of blood as it whipped across her cheek.

**********

“Waverly Earp! Get your sorry angel ass off those steps this instant!”

Pushing through the storm, Nicole followed the voices and used them to guide her through the blinding swirls of mulch and soil torn up from the ground.

“The gate must close. Eve cannot be allowed to escape again.”

“And we will close it, baby girl! Just come back down and we’ll figure it out once we bury—!”

“Don’t you dare say her name!”

“Nicole wouldn’t want this, baby girl. She was a good cop. The best. She wouldn’t want vengeance in her name.”

Nicole tried to call out, to let them know that she was there and somehow alive, anything to erase the anguish she could hear beneath the otherworldly timbre layered over Waverly’s beautiful voice but the wind tore her words and the air from her lungs and tossed them away.

“This is how it must be. It is my birthright. Passed down unto to me by my father. An angel must sit on the throne. It is the only way to contain Eve and stop her from poisoning the world.”

Digging her fingers into the trunk of an ancient pine almost bent in half, Nicole edged her way around until she found her back pinned against the rough bark on the edge of the clearing with the stairs to the garden right there before her.

Across the way, she could see Doc similarly pinned in place. His right arm was bent back at an unnatural angle in at least three places, his gun dangling uselessly from a finger that was as broken and twisted as his arm. With each push of wind against his body, Nicole saw his lips curl back, revealing the gold of his vampiric teeth as his cry of pain was ripped out of him and tossed asunder.

Wynonna had made it to the bottom of the stairs, no doubt by sheer whiskey-fuelled determination as well as the good grace of Waverly but she was allowed not a step closer by the same thing they had kept her from following Waverly once before: a barrier that rippled with energy with every impotent strike of her fist upon it.

Before it had been the garden itself and the laws that governed it that had kept Wynonna out, this time, Nicole had the feeling it was the angel standing upon them. Her body haloed by the blinding, cold light pouring out of the open doorway at the top of the stairs.

Even with blood and gore that dripped and splattered against the stairs with every ragged breath from the black feathered wings that had emerged from her back, she was beautiful.

She was Waverly.

Her Waverly.

Pushing away from the tree, Nicole leaned into the wind and made her way determinedly closer until she stood at Wynonna’s side.

“Waverly Earp!”

“Nicole!?”

“Haught?”

Lifting her right foot, she placed it through the barrier and onto the first tread.

“You—”

“Died? Yep,” she took another step and then another, feeling the barrier part for her and then close right behind her. “I came back for you, baby.”

“This cannot be stopped. The gate must close.”

“I know.”

“Haught! Kudos on the whole being alive again thing but, don’t let her through that damn door!”

Ignoring her friend, Nicole closed her eyes against the rush of emotion that brought tears to her eyes and leaned into the warmth of Waverly’s hands as she cupped her face between them. Her touch was like coming home.

“I can’t stop this, Nicole.”

Turning her face, she kissed Waverly’s palm but Waverly’s hands slid away as vines slithered from the doorway and wrapped around her, forcing her back down the stairs.

“Wait!”

“I’ve got to go! I’ve got to keep you safe!”

“Where you go, I go! Remember?” The words screamed broken and ragged from deep within Nicole’s soul.

Nicole struggled out of the vines as their grip loosened and quickly regained the distance she had lost between herself and Waverly.

“Eighteen months, three weeks and four days. That is how long I was without you and every second of that time was… hell,” her voice cracked with all the pain of that time alone that she finally let Waverly see completely and utterly through her eyes. “I- I can’t do that again Waves. I _won’t_ do that again.”

Sliding her arms around Waverly’s waist, Nicole slid her hands up into the warmth trapped beneath the wings on her back as she stepped closer. A soft, needy whimper fell from Waverly’s softly parted lips as Nicole dipped her head and claimed the sound with a tender kiss that threatened to turn heated in a second.

“Let me go with you. Let me help you.”

“You don’t know what it’s like there,” Waverly protested even as she clung to Nicole as though her life depended on it. And, maybe it did.

“I know what you told me. I also know that I would be with you forever and that is all I want. And look,” she gestured Waverly’s wings that had lost their blackness and were a snowy white and to the vines coiled across the stairs that had turned green and were starting to bloom while they were talking. Even the light coming from the garden had changed, taking on warmer hues. “The Garden is changing. Awakening.”

“Because of us?”

“Because of us,” Nicole agreed. “I know this isn’t what we had planned for tomorrow but,” fishing around in the inside pocket of her suit jacket, she pulled out the wedding bands she had been keeping safe. “I’m guessing, hoping, that it will still be legal… it is The Garden after all.”

There was none of the ceremony they had planned or, in Waverly’s case, dreamed about since she was ten. Apart from Wynonna and Doc, there was no one there to witness it but, nothing felt more real and right to Nicole than when she slid the plain gold wedding band onto Waverly’s finger and felt the weight of its twin warmed by Waverly’s hand settle around her own.

She looked down the stairs, finding the love, understanding, and sorrow in Wynonna’s tear-filled blue eyes.

“You assholes,” Wynonna sniffed brokenly. “Everyone keeps leaving me behind. What am I supposed to do without my celestial sister and Haught cop?”

“Live. Love,” Waverly nodded her head pointedly towards Doc. “You will always be my hero, Wynonna. Nothing will ever change that but,” entangling her fingers with Nicole’s she stepped with her through the waiting doorway. “You know, with Eve contained you can be Alice’s hero too,” she pointed out gently.

With the reawakening garden bathing them in warmth and light and Nicole’s body pressed against hers, Waverly turned back to face her sister one last time as the door started to close, sealing them within.

Soulmates.

Together.

Forever.


	2. Five Years Later

The summer sun beat down upon Wynonna’s head and shoulders, seeping into the worn leather of the jacket she still clung to after all the years. The brightness of the sun forced her eyes to close, acting as a welcome foil for the tears that stung and threatened to fall as she turned her gaze away from the curving stone steps leading to the empty archway at the top.

Five years had passed since the garden had taken Waverly and Nicole away from her, from them all but, not a day went by when Wynonna didn’t think of them and miss them just a little more every day. She had lost people before: Ward, Willa, Uncle Curtis, Shorty, and Dolls amongst others.

Time had softened the edges of _their_ passing in a way that it couldn’t with Waverly and Nicole. But, that was because they weren’t dead and Wynonna refused to think of them that way no matter what anyone else said or tried to tell her.

If Willa could be ‘dead’ for sixteen years then she could hold on to her faith that she would see Waverly and Nicole again and that they could be returned to her from that shitshow of a garden that had twisted a matter of days into a year and a half for Nicole.

She owed them that if for nothing else than for what their sacrifice had returned.

With Black Badge gone and Eve contained within The Garden once more, peace had returned to the Ghost River Triangle and the sanctuary contained within the bounds of Purgatory. Demons and humans coexisted in relative peace and…

“Could you tell me another story?”

… with that peace had come Alice.

The childish, high-pitched voice drew Wynonna’s gaze away from the stairs to where her daughter was bouncing up and down before Gus, her body jittering with the kind of boundless energy that made Wynonna envious.

“Maybe your mama will tell you one later, Alice,” Gus offered, her eyes falling to Wynonna’s as Alice rushed across the clearing and skidded to a halt before her mama. Lord but it was like looking through a time distorting mirror seeing them together sometimes with how much Alice looked like Wynonna when she was the same age.

There were harsh angles and lines etched into Wynonna’s face and a wariness in her eyes that Gus knew all too well had nothing to do with age that she was determined to never see upon Alice’s face. If she could, Gus would erase it from Wynonna’s too.

The poor girl had suffered enough under the cruel yoke of the Earp curse and Ward’s brand of parenting. Wynonna had broken the curse though, she’d freed her daughter from having to follow in her footsteps but… there was still pain within Wynonna’s eyes. Pain and suffering that grew and almost consumed her on that day. It closed her off from them all and it needed to stop.

She needed to heal.

“Mama?”

“Sure thing, baby— girl,” Wynonna paused, swallowing down the brief flare of pain the name caused even though it felt right. Anything you want.“ Her daughter’s brow creased in thought, her blue eyes lighting with a hopefulness that had Wynonna knowing what was coming before Alice even opened her mouth to put forward her request.

“Will you tell me a story ‘bout Aunty Waves and Nicole, Mama?”

Smiling softly, Wynonna brushed her thumb across the downy softness of Alice’s cheek. Her unbidden mind flashing back to when she had first touched her that way after her birth on the hard and unlikely surface of the pool table at Shorty’s.

That was probably a story left for a different time though. Maybe for when Alice was getting too big for her teenage boots or, yeah, definitely felt like a good story for a wedding day.

“I promise. One story about Waverly and Nicole before bed. Just one now,” she cautioned knowing how Alice liked to push for more given half a chance. Ignoring her pout, Wynonna, pressed a kiss to her forehead and gave her butt a gentle pat. “Now, why don’t you go play for a little while? Don’t wander off too far though!” she called after Alice as her daughter set off at a full, carefree run towards the trees.

“She is still so dainty and delicate in blue.”

“I’m not so sure about the dainty or delicate but she does look good in blue,” Wynonna chuckled as the tiny body of her daughter crashed through the weeds and bushes making as much noise as a bull moose in rut.

She shifted around on the blanket, making room for Doc to sit. With typical Vampiric grace, he arranged himself behind her, his body creating a muscular support for her to lean back into that she accepted with a sigh of gratitude. “At least we don’t need to guess where she is.”

“She knows better than to wander, my love,” Doc lulled gently, knowing full well what had Wynonna on edge as he always did even without her gaze shifting to the stairs as always. “Wynonna—”

“Don’t! Don’t tell me I need to move on,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “Not today.”

“I would never—”

“Liar,” Wynonna smiled at him gently over her shoulder, letting him know he was forgiven for caring. Leaning further into him, wrapping her fingers up in the steadying touch of his calloused hands, she followed the curve of the stairs one stone tread at a time.

She had walked them so many times in the last five years that she figured she must have worn a grove in them. But, unlike Doc, she had not been allowed to follow. Instead, apart from one ignominious faceplant into the snow with Nedley watching, she had ended most of her trips to the top of the stairs with her blood staining the archway and steps as it poured from the fists she used to pound against them for hours, days, weeks and months at a time until she was worn out to the point she couldn’t resist when Doc came to pick her up and take her home.

As often as she had futilely punched the cursed piece of architecture, she had punched and slapped at Doc for stopping her… for caring… for continuing to tell her he loved her after being so damn emotionally constipated he couldn’t say the words when Waverly, the one that had been pushing them to see their love for each other, was gone.

Once he said it, ‘I love you, Wynonna!’ it was as though he couldn’t stop himself and he didn’t even after she heard and believed him.

Not that their love made everything instantly better between them. In fact, for a time, it had made things worse as she had riled against him and had slept her way around Purgatory with everything with a pulse whether it was human or demon, to try and force him away.

She had even gone so far as to return to the ‘Sanctuary of The Scored Woman’ and had fallen into the arms and bed of Rosita. There, unbelievably, she had found a peace that had grown to encompass all of them. Rosita still couldn’t leave the sanctuary where she lived with her nun friends but the sanctuary had shifted along with their newfound love to allow Doc in. And once there they had proved often how adept they _both_ were when it came to finding a dildo in a nunnery as well as using one.

“What are you thinking about that has that smile upon your face, my love?”

“Something better left unspoken,” Wynonna smirked softly.

“Ahh, well, I am looking forward to hearing about it once we are alone.”

“We have a kid, Doc. Alone rarely happens,” she pointed out.

“Lord above you two,” Gus sighed, “you know darn well that you can ask me to babysit anytime you want. Not like Alice has far to go.”

The pang of pain was back, worming its way through Wynonna despite the un-Wynonna-esque blush from being overheard by Gus.

The fact that Gus could offer to babysit Alice was down to Waverly’s sacrifice as well as plans her ‘planner’ of a baby sister had been making in secret for the homestead and her life with Nicole before everything had gone to angelic shit.

Plans that Wynonna had found in a binder tucked away in their closet on the first anniversary of the door to the garden closing on Waverly and Nicole. While the binder was an improvement on Waverly’s usually murder boards, which was Waverly at her scrapbooking worst, the plans for changes to the homestead had made her bawl like a baby.

Wynonna had been so scared, more like terrified, that she would be left alone once they married but they had never intended to leave. She knew that by the notes written on the plans in Nicole’s careful hand that added to Waverly’s dreams of creating more rooms so Wynonna could sleep in the house and not the barn, as well as making room for Alice and Rachel to grow.

There were even plans on a page decorated with carefully drawn hearts for a second house on the grounds for her and Nicole. With a note added by Nicole that they would need more locks.

It was obvious that they had wanted Alice to be back so Wynonna had given them what they wanted… but only after returning to the stairs in a drunken stupor to spill her blood and whiskey upon them.

That visit was a still all a haze of pain, curses screamed to the heavens and broken glass as she had hurled the empty whiskey bottle at Doc’s head when he had tried to pull her away. After that there was nothing…

Nothing that felt like it could be real…

Just…

She could remember the feel of warm wood behind her back, supporting her from a certain fall as she had slumped beneath the archway where there had been nothing. And the feeling, the dream, that Waverly was sitting the other side of it mirroring her position, whispering to her across time and space or whatever it was that divided them as she had drifted into unconsciousness.

When Wynonna had awoken, as much as she could with her blood still mostly made up of whiskey, it was to the feel of Doc’s arms holding her aloft as he had carried her home and curled up behind her on the thin bed in the barn in a way that was familiar and yet felt alien with him.

Every year since then, no matter what, Wynonna had made sure that she was there on that date with a bottle of whiskey in hand to see her through her painful vigil. And maybe it was wishful thinking or the booze but, sometimes she woke up with the same warm feeling and memories of the door returning even though she had no proof.

It gave her the strength to carry on though if she believed that somehow Waverly was there at that time and knew she was there.

“Stay with me tonight, Wynonna.”

Wynonna sighed knowing he had guessed her plans for the night. Though, truthfully, the whole of Purgatory probably knew what she did that night by now. “Doc—”

“Or let me be here for you,” Doc pleaded. “You don’t have to be here alone. Not tonight, my love. Not ever.”

“I know,” Wynonna mumbled. “I really do. It’s just- I’ve kind of got my system—”

“Getting drunk is not a good system, Wynonna.”

“I didn’t say it was good but, it’s worked for me so far,” she shot back defensively. “Okay, kind of worked,” she admitted with a shrug. “It’s all I’ve got, Doc. Even if it’s all something made up in a drunken stupor it’s all I’ve got.”

“It is not all you have got, darlin’. I know there are times that you don’t want to see it but there is a whole town out there supporting you. Yes, even the demons now you’ve stopped shooting them in the ass for no reason,” he teased gently simply so he could see her eyes light up with mischief even if it was but for a moment and for things he was hoping were behind her.

Wrapping his arms tighter around her waist, Wynonna closed her eyes as she relaxed into him further, breathing in his scent. “I miss them, Doc,” she breathed out on a sigh.

“As do I, my love. I am sorry that I could not follow them how I did before—” he broke off in confusion as Wynonna gave a soft snort and cut him a look. “What?”

“Just thinking about how flustered you would have gotten with all the premarital sex they would have been having. Did The Garden have anywhere thicker walls than the homestead?” Clenching her jaw, she held back the almost maniacal, hiccupped laugh that threatened to take over her as she thought about what she had seen of the cursed arctic wasteland that was The Garden.

It was nothing like how it was described in any piece of scripture.

“Have you heard from Jeremy, has he found anything new yet?”

Doc drew in a breath, stealing himself to be the bearer of bad news once more. “Nothing that will help. The gate at Monument is still dead thanks to BBD’s meddling. Rachel and Billy are still following leads and checking out all the Mayan ruins they can find around the Yucatán. Not even the power of The Valdez seems to be awakening anything but, they haven’t given up.”

“I still can’t believe Smalldez became a goddamn Warrior Princess when she turned twenty-one.”

“And yet, it felt inevitable when it happened.” He held his tongue from any heir talk when he caught the flash of anger sparking in Wynonna’s eyes. She had suffered because she was heir to the Earp Curse. Waverly had returned to the garden because she was heir to one of its protectors and Rachel had been changed, moulded into an immortal weapon because of her heritage.

Wynonna was a victim herself and not to blame for any of what had happened and yet, Doc knew that she did indeed shoulder the blame.

Glancing at his watch, he poured them all a generous shot of whiskey from his flask and handed them around. While Wynonna had her traditions that would see her return to the stairs later that night, they had their own on that day where they raised a glass to Waverly and Nicole at the time the door had closed upon them, sealing them within The Garden.

The time was closing in fast, signalling five years right down to the minute.

Doc shifted closer as Wynonna’s head dropped, her eyes shedding a tear that fell from deep within the soul of pain-filled blue, into the golden amber of the whiskey.

“We _will_ get them back, my love,” he assured her as best he could. “Until we find a way, Nicole will keep Waverly safe with every fibre of her being as much as Waverly will protect Nicole.”

With a quick swipe of her arm, Wynonna brushed aside her tears and turned her head to hide her sorrow behind the shelter of Doc’s body as she heard the unmistakable blundering of Alice making her way back towards them.

She was so focussed on hiding her sorrow that she barely registered Alice’s gasp of wonder or the cause of it, assuming instead that her baby was just surprised to see Doc there.

“Mama?”

“I’m okay—” Wynonna swiped at her eyes again, willing the tears to dry.

“Mama… where did that door come from?”

“Door?” Wynonna froze, her breath catching and body stiffening almost as much as Doc’s suddenly preternaturally still one at her back.

“Wynonna—”

Wynonna was already looking, her eyes racing up the stairs with rising trepidation to where the blood-red door had returned to fill the archway at the top. She surged to her feet, her heart pounding against her ribs as a blinding light poured from around the edges of the door.

“Gus, take Alice—”

“No! Want to stay, papa!”

Wynonna was thankful that Doc and Gus were there to wrangle Alice as she felt frozen in place, her knees locked together the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the ground in a heap as the door started to open. The light that poured from within was softer than she remembered.

Warmer.

It filled the clearing, reaching where the sun in the sky couldn’t and embuing everything with a sense of calm and peace that should have been ringing all kinds of alarm bells in Wynonna.

And it might have if it hadn’t held within its warmth the tropical scent of Waverly’s shampoo and… vanilla-dipped doughnuts?

The light dimmed, fading as three distinct forms shifted around within it, coalescing into a halo around two of the figures that stepped closer. The third stood further back, giving a bright, familiar smile that stole Wynonna’s breath before it faded away like a Cheshire Cat grin.

It was the couple that held Wynonna’s attention and had her breath hitching with every step they took that brought them closer. It was them that had her lurching forward, nearly tripping over herself as the need to grab them and drag them down the stairs overwhelmed all ability to control her limbs.

Her mouth opened and closed, forming their names over and over in a silent mantra.

‘Waverly.’

‘Nicole.’

They looked so good. Their bodies and eyes alight with a joy that shone brighter than the light from The Garden as they looked down at them all and then at the swaddled bundle cradled in Waverly’s arms.

A swaddled bundle with a shock of flyaway red hair, Wynonna noticed. So much for Naughty-Haughty’s claim that _Wynonna Interruptus_ as a birth control more effective than the pill wasn’t how lesbian-ing worked. Oh yes, she was determined to come up with all the puns she could… later.

They were back!

Five years!

Unsticking her feet, Wynonna flew up the stairs and into their arms.

They were back!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - I find it surprisingly hard to write Wynonna. She is just such a complex character and somehow, it feels like her voice is so strongly Mel's that I can't grasp it... Not that any of them are easy for me at the moment.
> 
> There was so much I wanted to cover, so many snippets of things that had happened over the five years in Purgatory since Waverly and Nicole had stepped into the garden. I know I missed some that I wanted to get in but I hope I got enough that chapter didn't suck too much.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a possibility of a second chapter. It's in my head but not written yet so we'll see how that goes.


End file.
